LANDesk stores its data files in the /Library/Application Support/LANDesk/data directory. However, there is a uuid file for LANDesk that, if you put the LANDesk client in your image will need to be deleted. The uuid is in the /Library/Preferences/com.landesk.uuid.plist property list. If you rm this file as a postflight imaging task then your client can be deployed on your image: rm /Library/Preferences/com.landesk.uuid.plist
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DeployStudio From the Command Line
Recently I did a little article on importing computers into DeployStudio lists. I got an overwhelming number of email requests to go a step further and look at importing computers into DeployStudio from the command line. I’m guessing lots of people want to bolt some middleware onto their mass deployment tools (can’t say I blame ’em). The first thing to know is that DeployStudio stores most everything in standard property lists. This includes workflows, computer groups and computers. When you install DeployStudio you selected a location to place your database. For the purpose of this example, we’re going to use /DSDatabase as our location. Within this directory is a folder…
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ASR Setup Tool Open Sourced
Originally Posted to the 318 TechJournal 318 has decided to open source our ASR Setup Tool, which can now be found at http://asrsetup.sourceforge.net. The ASR Setup Tool is built as a wrapper for the asr command line suite from Apple. The description from SourceForge: Developed by 318 Inc., ASR Setup Tool is an application for setting up Apple Software Restore (“ASR”). In the context of the ASR Setup Tool, ASR is used for setting up a multicast stream that can then be leveraged for imaging Mac OS X computers. We hope you enjoy!
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DeployStudio: Creating a New Master Image
Once you have been using DeployStudio for a time, you’ll invariably end up creating a new master image. This is a hot topic this summer, given that Apple will be releasing Mac OS X 10.6 later this year and many people integrating DeployStudio want to make sure that they can manage the solution themselves during the subsequent updates. Provided you have been leveraging all of the best in package based imaging this might be a relatively small file, or if you are using a monolithic image for distribution it might be a fairly large file. Either way, DeployStudio makes it fairly straight forward to create a new master image. To…
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Imaging Maturity for Mac OS X environments
Seems like most companies start out manually installing their computers. This works for awhile but then they run into a situation where they’re manually installing too many and realize that for the most part they’re all pretty much the same. That’s when products like Carbon Copy Cloner and Ghost (for those pesky Windows workstations) come into play. Suddenly they’re saving time by mounting up an image and restoring it. Then there is a collection of post-flight tasks they perform, like setting up user environments, settings and directory services bindings. Then, there are just too many for this, so people start doing network based imaging. Something like NetInstall, NetRestore, ASR or…
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Mac OS X: Alex.SpeechVoice
Have you noticed how big Mac OS X has gotten? Wonder why? Well, for the most part Apple does a good job with compression and file management. But things like iDVD, Garage Band, etc are taking their toll. Then there are printer drivers and fonts. And then there is this gem: Alex.SpeechVoice. In the /System/Library/Speech/Voices/Alex.SpeechVoice/Contents/Resources is a file called PCMWave. This file is 692MB. If you don’t plan on using the Alex voice then trash it to reduce the size of your image considerably.
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What Version of Mac OS X Am I Running?
Ever need to have a program check a file to tell you what version of Mac OS X you’re running to do a quick sanity check? In /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist you’ll find a key for ProductVersion. The value in this key is the version of Mac OS X you’re using. Keep in mind that the path should be relative to the volume that houses the operating system. Therefore, if you’re using a volume during imaging and you’re running a postflight or preflight script make sure you check the path relative to the operating system you’re augmenting.